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For most musos, their guitar or drum kit is like another
appendage. The pride that flows when discussing their instrument's
virtues can border on obsessive. But it's doubtful many instruments
are more worthy of a brag session than That 1 Guy's seven-foot
(2.13 metre) contraption, the magic pipe.

That 1 Guy - aka Mike Silverman - built the instrument from
galvanised pipes, duct tape and hardware store trinkets. Even
before he built his unique instrument, Silverman was reinterpreting
and experimenting.

A classically trained double bass player, Silverman felt
restricted by his instrument's musical potential and decided to
reconfigure it. He tore off the strings for use in his new
instrument. All down the length of the pipe are sensors that
release drum-and-bass samples when Silverman plucks out everything
from rock solos to jazz basslines. While beat-boxing.

"I'm doing a lot of things at once," Silverman says. "What I'm
doing is considered live looping. I think it takes people a lot of
time to absorb it all."

By strumming, plucking, slapping and looping his pipe, Silverman
creates a multilayered soundscape, complemented by his electrified
cowboy boots and drum machines.

Silverman admits the pipe takes a beating on the touring
circuit. It breaks down into three parts, fitting into a specially
made case.

"It's coping as best it could," he says of his instrument. "It
gets a good workout. The road is not kind to it, but that's what
it's all about."

Silverman is San Francisco's Pied Piper-cum-Dr Seuss. He built
the magic pipe seven years ago but he has been performing as That 1
Guy for nine years. Along the way to a traditional musical career,
Silverman found he had more to express musically than a symphony
would allow.

He played in a five-piece band called the Fabulous Hedgehogs,
but after a dismal post-gig payment he joked he'd play the next gig
solo, and That 1 Guy officially came into being.

Often unsure whether to laugh, dance or simply stare, audiences
are collectively gobsmacked by the That 1 Guy experience.

"There is a lot going on," Silverman says. "Sometimes, in
certain rooms, people tend to focus in and watch. Other times they
tend to just dance and go nuts. It depends on the vibe."

Then there are the lyrics. From weasel potpies to meat raining
from the sky, drinking blood and slapping "beotches", Silverman's
lyrical imagination is as warped as his magic pipe.

Silverman lists Dr Demento, Frank Zappa, Dr Seuss and Captain
Beefheart as his childhood influences. He admits he is attracted to
anything "funny and weird".

"I was always attracted to stuff that had a lot of humour
underneath it but was kind of serious in its approach," the
33-year-old says.

His debut album, Songs in the Key of Beotch, was released
on Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe Records label last year.

"The word [beotch] is so funny to me, ever since I heard Snoop
Doggy Dogg say it. Then I was in a club I used to play at all the
time and someone had written 'b-e-o-t-c-h' on the wall and I
thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

"I always like to take a joke all the way, so why not call your
album that?"